Slipping
by Ijustwantyoutoknow
Summary: Lily Evans hated House Rivalry, Change, and the fact that even though she loved him with her whole heart, it wasn't enough to keep him from slipping through her helpless fingers.


**Hey everybody! Wrote this for another challenge. I am on a roll. Please tell me what you think! I don't own anything.**

Lily Evans studied in the serene calm of the library. Her thoughts whispered spells and recited the ingredients to potions. She blocked out thoughts of war, James Potter and his cronies, but most of all she used her studies to push away the thought of Severus Snape.

Her childhood friend, her first kiss, and the one to hold her when she was sad. He had always been a rock among the angry waters of her life. But now he was uprooted, taken away by the tide.

And now Lily felt like she was drowning. At fifteen she couldn't understand how he could be so ignorant, she could not fathom how he thought that He-who-must-not-be-named had the right idea about muggleborns and blood traitors.

He just threw away their entire relationship. And the happiness Lily had felt when she looked back on her childhood was now tainted. Every time she closed her eyes and remembered how she used to hold Sev's hand in the blissful ignorance of childhood brought burning feelings of resentment and anguish. Her heart hurt in places it never had before.

She wondered if this was how it felt to have a broken heart.

Heavy feet seemed to stomp over to her and Lily let out a long sigh of annoyance that went unnoticed by the approaching Gryffindor.

"Hey Evans, mourning over that Voldy-lover? Told you he's a good for nothing Snake." Lily grimaced and tried her very hardest not to hex the arrogant toe-rag in front of her.

"Buzz off James, I'm not dealing with this right now." Lily's green eyes flashed as she looked up at the messy haired boy.

"Hey now, it's about time you saw sense. He's just a dirty little death eater." James sneered at the thought of Lily's childhood friend.

"Believe it or not, James, he's also a human being." Lily slammed her charms book shut and stared at James coldly.

"He called you a mud-mud-" James couldn't get the word past his lips. Lily frowned bitterly.

"I know what he called me." Lily's eyes softened, "I know he didn't mean it. He couldn't have meant it." Her voice was barely a whisper and she felt more tears push at her eyes. She cleared her books and gathered them up in her arms.

"He wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it." James taunted and the thought of her Severus actually meaning the words he said was unbearable to Lily.

"He wouldn't have said it if you could just leave him the bloody hell alone for once!" Lily yelled and stormed off, leaving James standing shell-shocked in the silent library, the voice of Lily Evans echoing around him.

Lily stormed down the hallway and moving staircases, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. She took out her wand and banished her textbooks to her dorm, sick of lugging them around.

She exited the castle and onto the grassy grounds. The blue sky was beginning to darken and curfew was approaching. Lily felt her heart beat erratically, she'd never been one to break the rules.

But she needed the calming splash of black waves against the shoreline, she needed the distant howls and coos of magical creatures bustling about in the forbidden forest to calm her angry tears.

Lily leaned up against a familiar tree, one that she and Sev sat under for studying and idle chit-chat for four years. Lily crossed her arms and shut her eyes.

"_I don't need help from a mudblood." _

"_Mudblood" _

"_Dirty little mudblood." _

The words that were shot her way daily never hurt so much. They never seemed as dirty and laced with spears as they did now.

She'd never cried a tear for the people who called her terrible names. Until tonight, when the person she'd held closest to her heart betrayed her.

Lily choked on her sobs, pulling her legs to her chest and dropping her forehead to her knees. The world never seemed so cold.

The quietest footsteps she'd ever heard approached her, and a familiar musky scent filled her senses. She almost ran away, she almost yelled at the tall and lanky boy that settled himself next to her.

Almost. Instead she stayed there, sitting next to him. She cried into his robes and he stroked his pale fingers through her amber hair.

He hushed her and wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders.

"I'm sorry," His silky baritone voice was laced with regret, "I'm so sorry."

He repeated the words like a mantra and Lily pulled herself into his robes.

"Oh Sev." She gasped, her stomach and chest tightened and made it hard for her to breathe. She took in a staggering breath and buried her head into the crook of his neck.

"Please tell me you didn't mean it." She whispered, still clutching his robes.

She felt one of his long fingers under her chin. She allowed him to lift her chin up so that her emerald orbs met his stormy dark ones.

"Never." His voice was barely a whisper and he pressed his lips to her forehead. Lily shut her eyes and reveled in the familiar contact.

She pulled herself up into his lap and rested her forehead against his. She could feel his breath on her lips and she placed a hand on his cheek. They kept eye contact for a minute, senses heightened.

Lily suppressed a shudder as Severus' hands trailed down her neck and over her shoulder blades then moving to sweep slowly down her spine. His hands finally settled on her hips and Lily pressed her lips firmly to his.

Their lips moved perfectly together and Lily sighed at the gentle way his lips caressed hers. She felt his tongue flick against her lips and she allowed him to deepen the kiss.

After what seemed like forever, Lily pulled away, still only inches from Sev's pale face. She gave a small smile and grabbed his larger hand in her smaller one. As Lily rested her head on his chest she thought about how much she hated house rivalry.

She couldn't stand the fact that she couldn't hold hands with a boy in a green tie while she wore a red and gold one. She hated how people judged her best friend badly because he was sorted into Slytherin.

Lily got as close to Severus as she could, because things were changing fast, and she hated it passionately. And for now, he could still be the one constant in her life. Even though she knew that unless he stopped participating in dark activities with his Slytherin friends she would lose him.

"Lily, we should go in before we get detention." Severus whispered, interrupting her thoughts of the inevitable future and tucking a lock of her fiery hair behind her freckly ear.

"Yeah," Lily bit her lip, hoping that she could persuade him to stop with the Dark Arts, "Sev, please stop hanging out with Malfoy and his posse." Lily looked at the ground and wrung her hands.

"How am I supposed to do that?" He asked defensively, Lily gave him a pained look.

"Please try, just avoid them. Stay out of the common room, you can spend time with me." Lily pleaded, and Severus sighed.

"Potter probably wouldn't like that too much." A sneer that was gracing his face more and more often settled on his lips.

"Who cares about whether he likes it or not?" Lily clenched her fists, wondering why Severus was trying to wheedle his way out of this.

"I'll try." Lily didn't hear commitment in his voice, and Lily knew he wasn't going to look for a way out of his situation. Lily didn't say anything about it, but she felt her heart drop into her stomach.

"Okay." She whispered and wondered when her Sev was going to stop slipping through her fingers and just be gone.

**Review! (pretty pretty please), check out my other stories! Thanks a bunches for reading!**


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